Then He [the Star Child] Waited, Marshaling

Even If We Never Reach The Stars By Our Own Efforts, In The Millions Of Years That Lie Ahead It Is Almost Certain That The Stars Will Come To Us. Isolationism Is Neither A Practical Policy On The National Or Cosmic Scale. And When The First Contact With The Outer Universe Is Made, One Would Like To Think That Mankind Played An Active And Not Merely A Passive Role-that We Were The Discoverers, Not The Discovered.

In This Universe The Night Was Falling; The Shadows Were Lengthening Towards An East That Would Not Know Another Dawn. But Elsewhere The Stars Were Still Young And The Light Of Morning Lingered; And Along The Path He Once Had Followed, Man Would One Day Go Again.

The Fact That We Have Not Yet Found The Slightest Evidence For Life - Much Less Intelligence - Beyond This Earth Does Not Surprise Or Disappoint Me In The Least. Our Technology Must Still Be Laughably Primitive, We May Be Like Jungle Savages Listening For The Throbbing Of Tom-toms While The Ether Around Them Carries More Words Per Second Than They Could Utter In A Lifetime.

The Moment When One First Meets A Great Work Of Art Has An Impact That Can Never Again Be Recaptured.

Now Times Had Changed, And The Inherited Wisdom Of The Past Had Become Folly.